


Old Price of Progress

by Spiria



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiria/pseuds/Spiria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world moves, those who resist change are left behind. As Wingul moves forward, Nils is forced to say his goodbyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Price of Progress

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is dedicated to a number of people, whose generosity with official material and/or passion for Wingul and Gaius inspired me to write. It seems odd, then, to produce something primarily in the perspectives of Wingul and Nils, but I hope that this sufficiently gets the two major relationships in the introspection across.

Lin was born in Undis, small and pale but full of promise. Not one failed to praise his birth that day, and their shivering against the cold came to a rapid end when the joy in their hearts led to a warm celebration. Long Dau came alive that day, and the atmosphere around its territories changed from the people's example.

It was only a matter of time, astoundingly short, before Lin started to walk and learn words and even chase. One of those words was "Nils," and his frequent target of pursuit was the boy by the same name.

 

* * *

 

It was when Lin began to lose color that Nils remembered.

 

* * *

 

Lin was by no means an intimate person as a boy. He was simply content to keep a fair distance from others. But on the rare occasion something disturbed him beyond his wits, like a sudden bad feeling that plagued his small frame, he clutched Nils' hand. With a drawn face, he relished the contact and how, by nature of its comparative largeness and callouses, Nils' hand grounded him to reality.

Nils was stability, a constant in Lin's youth since birth. He was older and maturer, bigger and stronger. He was bright like the yellow sun, the color of his bright hair. He was prone to smiling, as if worldly matters weighed nothing to him. He was never angry, never upset, never sad; only happy.

It was his strength that Lin loved.

 

* * *

 

But Nils had not held hands with Lin in over a decade. Even now, his hands remained limp at his sides as pain spread throughout his chest. Even as Lin watched and continued to lose color, because there was nothing that he or Jiao could do for him.

Still, Nils smiled. The corners of his lips trembled from his lack of strength. But he was smiling.

 

* * *

 

All of Long Dau loved Lin. Yet all of the tribe failed to realize the radical notions their young heir mulled over, for though Lin had many traditional standards, he was progressive next to their outdated ways. He had a mind for progress, and the taste of that progress was addictive to him. But he lacked the strength to turn that progress into reality, so he settled for the dream. He settled, because he knew better than to go to Nils; who was strong, but simple and incapable of visualizing a change so big.

It was a settlement of complete and utter disappointment with no other to share his dream. His dream was destined for loneliness, fated for abandonment.

He almost forgot the dream, the true essence of his ideas, until the fateful day when the upstart of Taurus came before him. Then Gaius spoke, and Lin remembered through the man's words what he had nearly given up on, what he had thought was a lonely fool's journey. That a man who could pursue such a quest on his lonesome existed -- for his men rallied behind him, not with him -- promised there existed a man who could shift the world by his own power. That there existed a man who could shoulder the burdens of the dream.

 

* * *

 

Nils was only sorry that he could not have been strong enough to shoulder Lin's dream. As he laid there, struggling to maintain his consciousness in spite of Lin's demands, he was sorry that he had grown weaker, rather than stronger, over the years. That was what he thought, until a moment of clarity struck and he realized that he hadn't grown weak, nor could he be considered a weakling, because Lin had just grown stronger and taken too many powerful steps ahead of him.

That had been the booster experiment's purpose. The same experiment for which Nils had been incompatible. And the same experiment where the price ran so steep that it was  no wonder he had come out incapable, and he was moved again by the spirit of the children who had persevered through the process. But the process had only managed to become as painless as reported from another's suffering.

His failings impaired him. He was only sorry that he could not have looked after Lin any better. That all he could do was cry and cling to the old traditions, to the hopes that Long Dau would one day be restored and, with it, the priceless memories.

 

* * *

 

To be sure, Gaius was a man worthy of great things and only those great things. His strength of character was no doubt without comparison in the world. He was inscrutable to most, with his lack of superficial expression and hardy tone; but to Wingul, he was by far the easiest person to read and someone in whom he could lay his newfound trust. He confided in Gaius his dream. He extended no other the same privilege.

Gaius was stability, a powerful wave that beat the odds and ensured movement. He was striking and powerful, red as the fires of progress that burned in his heart. He was prone to glowering, as if he were challenging the world to oppose him. He was always firm, always passionate, always charismatic; never weak.

It was his strength that gave Wingul, bereft of all else, a reason to wake and breathe.

 

* * *

 

Still, Nils smiled. His lack of growth paled next to the progress Lin had accomplished, the strength Lin had craved and acquired after years of struggling and agony. That the boy who once held his hand for reassurance and security could now stand on his own two feet left no room for argument, and Nils, for all his simplicity, understood the case.

But the same simplicity continued to weep, and against the odds that the hopeful future could happen, even after his passing, he searched for Lin through his hazy gaze and asked:

"Promise me that you'll revive Long Dau someday."

Lin was strong enough to move forward. Surely, one day, he would have the resources and mind to salvage what he had lost in his shattered childhood. Salvage what Nils had been fervently praying for since the day the tribe had dissolved, because the tribe was all he had known, what he had grown up to embrace and nurture. Now, all that remained of proud Long Dau was its chief, who had lost his identity down the road.

His name was Wingul, the man who had driven the revolution alongside King Gaius.

Not one person had survived through the revolution without loss. And though the strong should protect the weak, Nils thought it unfair how the strong suffered abuse for the sake of maintaining their power, that Lin would lose everything and drown in a new name that gave him more than he ever could have had and took from him more than he ever could give. For serving King Gaius so closely came with an even steeper cost, and the booster research was but one step of the noble but torturous path.

Lin, who was like a little brother to him, had done nothing to incur such ire from fate. Yet nothing, too, had pushed him to embrace such an outrageous dream of unification. The dream was the hammer that had split their shared ground, creating the rift that separated their desires and goals entirely. Nils knew his wish, though ordinary to him, would be considered outrageous by his own tribesman.

But as a man who had become weak, perhaps someone as strong as Wingul would reconsider it in line with his ideals.

 

* * *

 

Wingul lived for Gaius, the one who was meant to guide the world. He lived for the future.

Long Dau, a fraction of his tried life, the portion of which he had cast aside, was no more than a relic of the past overshadowed by what lied ahead.


End file.
